Six new COVID-19 cases, two transmitted locally
(CNS): Two more people in Cayman have acquired COVID-19, despite not having a recent travel history or a direct connection to another person known to have the virus. Six samples from the latest batch of 56 proved to be positive. While four of the patients were contacts of those who previously tested positive, two are community transmissions, Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee revealed at Wednesday’s press briefing.
Although the number of random cases is increasing, the CMO said that with just two unexplained positive cases today (Wednesday 15 April), he was relatively happy about the current situation because the number of positive tests that cannot be explained is not on an upward trajectory.
“I feel confident that we are on the right track,” Dr Lee said, when asked for his overall assessment of the country’s response to the virus. “I felt happy today and have not felt happy for quite some time,” he said regarding this work.
The CMO said a graph he has shared with government officials shows that the number of new patients each day is not climbing and he hoped to see a further drop-off of the numbers. “We have not seen this acceleration that we are worried about, but it is still possible it will still come,” Dr Lee warned.
Sixty people in the Cayman Islands have now tested positive for the coronavirus from 630 tests. Six of the 60 have formally recovered, having been re-tested twice, and five have clinically recovered but are waiting for their final clearance tests. However, there are now 19 symptomatic patients. Six of them are in hospital, one of whom is on a ventilator but improving, Dr Lee said. Another 24 people are still asymptomatic.
Dr Lee gave an update on those tested at the George Town apartment block this week where there had been a quarantine breach by a person in self-isolation, who has since gone into government quarantine. The CMO said all those tested there had been negative.
Government is now hoping that an increase in testing will help it manage its way through the epidemic here, but Dr Lee was still unable to say when the testing will begin ramping up. There appears to be a number of barriers that have to be addressed, from shortages of equipment to a lack of skilled technicians.
All of the measures put in place have been designed to counter Cayman’s inability to do the level of testing that will enable the country to emerge from the lockdown. But as the increased testing continues to be delayed and the breaches of curfew continue, the concerns remain.
Premier Alden McLaughlin warned again that if we do get sustained community transmission in Cayman, there will be a more severe lockdown. Testing had shown that the apartment complex in George Town was clear so that worry was removed, he said, but is very concerned about the Good Friday “beach binge” because the outcome of that will nto be seen for more than a week.
“And even then we won’t be able to trace how people acquired it because there were so many people on the beach together,” he said. “It is these gatherings of people that present the greatest risk of us getting into sustained community transmission.”
However, the premier pointed out that we are not there yet.
See the press briefing on CIGTV below:
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Category: Health, Medical Health
Some Caymanians- “foreigners be outta here”- and yet Cayman need mostly foreign professionals for anything that needs high level professional expertise- such as conducting and analysing these COVID tests- ohh the irony- . Kick out ALL foreigners which will include most doctors, nurses, and such and see how you Caymanians survive- sweet irony
A mandatory testing throught out these islands is the key to solving this problem, have it like the banking & shopping system & A drive thorugh or posted the medical persons at the supermarkets etc, BRACKA.
BRACKA, you smarter than some of these dummies over here who can only complain about they need to go to the beach and swim in their pools. Thanks for common sense, bobo!
Where can I request a refund for my time wasted while a prayer is attempted to be shoved down my throat? (mute buttons are great, I concede)
They obviously aren’t working because many comment “praying for no new cases today”. Ahem. Sorry but not sorry for pointing out the obvious ~
Jesus said “I will help those who help themselves”! In this case its staying home, social distancing, testing, testing, testing etc.!
Sorry, it’s watch at your own peril. No refunds. No complaining. But if you just push that little “off” button on your remote, I think your problem will be solved going forward.
I am curious to know whether you can be prosecuted for breach of curfew during the contact tracing process? It could be possible that the two ‘community transmissions’ are not actual community transmissions but curfew breakers who visited someone in self-isolation.
What is even more interesting would be if a curfew breaker who was COVID-19, in the act of breaking curfew, can be shown in evidence to have given the disease to another/others, and those others (and by extension their families) get the disease and suffer a serious illness requiring hospitalization and possible permanent disability or even death, can that curfew breaker be either a) charged with a crime for infecting the third party/parties; and/or b) sued for a tort by those third parties? And, would it matter if a) the third party/parties did not know/did not have cause to enjoy the interaction that caused the infection, or b) the third party/parties knew the curfew breaker and invited/willing enjoyed the interaction that caused the infection. Lawyers… what’s your take?
That opinion will cost you. Please contact my firm to arrange a retainer.
Why no exploratory media questions on the 2 community transfers? Those are the scary ones, and the crux of whether we can retain our “cluster case” categorization and come out of this in a few weeks. By all means retain the anonymity of the identities, but we need cell phone mapping for where these people were and when. ie. If I was in a supermarket with “the coughing person” on the same day and time, don’t I have a right to know I might have been at risk of contact? Help us help you.
Making headlines by buying the tests, but forgetting to bring qualified staff to administer the testing. I saw this coming in February. Why those who were supposed to be ahead of the game only now admitting they screwed up?
Well it’s clear that Government is failing.
Let’s take some soundbites from today’s meeting.. OK, so when Dr. Lee was ask if they would test supermarket and pharmacy workers as being the most exposed and least protected amongst the front line workers he hedged and said were considering it… A clear indication that political considerations were there, instead he said, roughly that they were shown how to use PPE and he hoped the employers were putting proper guards in place.
Oh, so how we are relying on the expertise of grocers to manage the pandemic! Excellent delegation of responsibility.
But according to the Premier.. He had been watching this from December? So he didn’t see the multiple hundred cases on the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan but yet his deputy called them back. Oh but he said, today, we are learning from other countries experiences. Oh are we now really? I
God be with us! All we can do is stay home but is there an end in sight under this regime? We can only hope and pray that they are right.
No, failing would be having our hospitals overflowing to the point where they have to make decisions on who gets a ventilator and who lives and who dies – which in Italy was those over 60 and which was under discussion by the NYC community was discussing last week. Failing would be a curve that was on 75% angle and not a 35% angle. Failing would be letting the community businesses stay open in contradiction to the vast majority of medical exports and different from what most other countries. Failing would be following in the footsteps of Florida instead of New Zealand. This constant whining about the government is not only counterproductive, it comes off as a childish, and usually ill-informed tantrum. Who does that remind you of?
Thank you Cayman Islands Government for putting our best interests – our very lives – ahead of people who are mainly concerned about money and their possessions.
I believe they did well, but two obvious failing; letting those last seven ships dock, and the weak protocol for self isolation earlier.
Where is Hazard management?.
If the darn hard headed people had stayed home like they were told we would not be under such strict lock down rules. As the saying goes, if your ears can’t hear your butt will feel! Unfortunately, in this case the Innocents are suffering for the guilty!!!
That’s a saying?
I’m sure the saying is back in fashion these days.
It’s behind the times though.
It may helpful each day to repeat the essential requirement instead of scriptures or stories. These are governmental informative briefings for the public after all. Maybe reminders that households, young people visiting girlfriends/boyfriends should not be mixing or visiting each other and how they could not know if they were carriers of the virus. Difficult for everyone to do but if only some of us are doing it is pointless.
yep ..another day …more positives…get used to it.
still waiting on no-plan-alden’s economic plan…..companies are laying off people every day….
How is this his fault? Is he supposed to come tuck your ass in to bed every night? Stay your ass home and wash your hands!!!
What companies?
Taking a severance for those evacuating home, is not being fired.
Cayman……every briefing the number gets bigger, ever so slightly but BIGGER.
PLEAS STAY HOME FOR GODS SAKE WHILE WE CAN CRUSH THIS BEFORE IT KILLS
OUR LOVED ONES.
During the “beach binge” how many people were warned for breach of soft curfew? Let’s focus on the magnitude of the problem… Was it 0 warnings? 20? 50? 100? Just want to understand the extent of what those officers had to deal with.
It sounds like activity was primarily at Royal Palms and Public Beach, so why don’t we just say that public use of the beach is off-limits, but property owners can use the beach in front of their residence. Nothing more, nothing less. And 100% no alcohol allowed on Seven Mile Beach.
I actually agree with this. No booze. Movement can be forward and back from your strata to the ocean. No walking along the beach. Swimming should be allowed back and forth. Should be easy enough for the police to monitor movement. Make everyone carry ID.
Reasonable, responsible people would consider that very reasonable. I say limit vehicles that don’t transport essential workers to one person. That will reduce the number of “visit” trips, the number of people in the grocery stores, etc. With just a few additional enforced regulations, the current plan could work.
Why don’t I just hang out on the beach in front of your house and sip my mango tango?
Yes, please do and I will invite the police to enjoy it with you!
No, I’d rather have a rooster join me for a cocktail.
Where gave you been? None were warned. They scattered into groups of 2 when the police arrived.
The beaches are closed as a result.
They should have all been warned for prosecution. Made an example of!! Was weak ineffectual policing not to do that.
And NO just because you can live on the beach should not make you the only ones to enjoy it!
Because it’s too difficult to enforce.
all depends how lazy your police force is…
No, it depends how selfish stupid and undisciplined your population is.
As a direct result of lazy policing…. duh.
Just give it up already. The beach will still be there for you when this is over – unless you keep pushing it and end up a statistic… Or are you too special for that too???
As was explained, the public were given that trust, and predictably broke it. The police do not have the resources to enforce abuses of the curfew on 200km of ocean front. I fully understand why they closed it down, and was surprised it took them so long. Also surprised there aren’t public advisory warnings about use of communal tennis courts, gate combo locks, pool furniture, railings, recycling bins, elevator buttons, and other common property fixtures, and neighbourhood pets that dozens of households are repeatedly swapping skin oils and potentially contaminated droplet particles on.
I wonder if the same amount of manpower that was used on the George Town apartment, is used in other geographical areas? 40 persons tested negative. That is not the case elsewhere. Do we trust some more than others? And if so, is that not the main reason for the spread of the virus?
A shortage of skilled technicians? You we need to import people? The irony.
There are trained analytical chemists in Cayman although they are not currently working as such they could be brought up to speed very fast but CIG is not responding to their wanting to volunteer! We will soon be on the same curve as USA or Europe if we cannot meet CIG’s goal of 500-600 tests per day. This goal is sadly not going to come in time. We’ll most likely be under soft and hard curfews until this dream becomes a reality.
Well, machines analyze the properly collected tests. You have to know how to collect and how to use the machine. And there are only 1-3 people who know how according to Dr. Lee. It is not that simple as it might seem.
Speaking of putting the cart before the horse…
Before they even purchased the kits I mentioned in my comments the absence of trained technicians to administer the testing.
The same goes for experienced and licensed respiratory therapists since there are only 2 pulmonologists and allegedly 30 ventilator beds is being purchased.
The Land of backwards. 🤯🙈
These tests will be obsolete and a dime a dozen by the time we get the other components required and the skills to manage them.